The Potter's family friend

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 49654

In rereading the Three Broomsticks passage of PoA in regards to a view of 
what other people thought of Peter Pettigrew, something struck me.

Cornelius Fudge speaks with a remarkable degree of authority about James and 
Lily's private life and friendships. Things which do not make much sense 
comming from a casual observer. (How would *he* know *that*?)

I think that unless Rowling is simply putting words into Fudge's mouth 
because someone needed to say it, and he happened to be there, (and the 
private lives of the poor, tragic, young Potters was tabloid news long enough 
for everyone to know these details -- which doesn't seem to be the case, 
since it is apparantly NOT widely known that Black was supposed to be their 
Secret Keeper) we may be missing a fairly important clue. And that is that 
Fudge was evidently a *lot* deeper into Dumbledore's organization in VoldWar 
I than we've been led to believe. And that the "suddenly looking at him as if 
he had not seen him before" comment about Dumbledore's response to Fudge in 
the Parting of the Ways chapter of GoF has a lot more context than a surface 
reading would give us. 

At the very least, Fudge *knows* who Dumbledore's "old crowd" is. 

This could get very ugly.

-JOdel